Spotlight on supporting non-EU destitute migrants

Sally DaghlianPraxis CEO

Praxis core purpose

to provide help and support for newly arrived and long settled migrants

• to ensure that they are able to live in safety,• meet their essential human needs and • overcome the barriers they face to integrate,

develop and thrive in the UK.

We seek to • challenge exclusion• build solidarity • improve policy and service provision by

drawing on the lived experience of migrants and by supporting migrant communities for their voices to be heard.

Global context

• Conflict /war – refugee movements • Human trafficking• Forced labour (slavery)• Globalisation• Development

• Most refugees hosted in the south, less than 1% in the UK

Syrian refugees - more than 3.8 million in neighbouring countries.

UK context

• Demonization – hostile environment • Blocking access to services – housing, health• Focus on Reconnections as the only solution• Immigration Bill – internal controls/criminalisation• Rising migrant/immigrant homelessness and

destitution

Praxis housing work

• Praxis Work in partnership – not a housing agency

• Testing solutions • Finding pathways out of destitution 3 key elementsAccommodationFood/moneySpecialist immigration advice

Praxis Temporary Homes Project

• Andy Ludlow Award for innovation in homelessness

• Volunteer hosts; vicarage; convent; Metropolitan flat

• Not just houses/beds but homes• immigration advice and hardship fund

Commonweal- Praxis NRPF Project

• Commonweal Housing - housing solutions to social injustice

• Seeking to make bold experiments in housing• Using social investment• Testing innovative solutions• Learning and sustainability/replicability

The model – for London

• Social investors buy 7 properties• 2.5million commitment – Big Society Capital, City

Bridge Trust, Trust for London, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

• Commonweal lease properties to Praxis• Properties, specs and locations agreed with Praxis• 7 year project• External evaluation from the beginning

Overall Purpose

• To provide quality accommodation and support for NRPF families

• Under contract to local authorities (Sec 17 supported families)

• Social support and specialist immigration casework – quicker resolution

• Cross subsidise free bed spaces for single NRPF• Testing a model

So far... still in set up phase (5 houses)

• Agreements with Croydon and Islington councils – NRPF teams; children’s services

• 21 people housed, including 10 children• Average stay 4.4 months• Evaluation framework in development

Challenges

Finding suitable properties –• price• location • layout • Regulations – HMO, certificates of lawful

development vs planning

Challenges cont...

Local authorities • costs/contracts • speed • referrals• staff turnover

For Praxis – setting up a housing project as a small non-housing organisation - risk

Challenges cont...

• Single family occupancy• Original model to have mixed households• Move-on • Home Office decision making• Local authority response time• Unbudgeted costs

Who needs the service?

• People who came to the UK as children but discover they have no status as adults

• Foreign national parent(s) of British children, with NRPF (often lone women) and unable to work.

• Long settled immigrants who have lost documentation and need to prove rights

• People in transition/limbo awaiting Home Office decisions – unable to work or claim

Case study – Alice

• Brought to UK from Ghana age 3 when her mother died and left in the care of an aunt.• Alice became homeless age 18 (and pregnant) when her aunt died

of cancer.• Presented at local council housing - told that she has no right to

be in the UK and NRPF.• Sofa surfing; transactional arrangements; roofless at 5 months

pregnant• Eventually accommodated by social services and referred to Praxis

Solution – legal case – is under 25 and has spent more than half her life in UK but this has to be evidenced and no legal aid.

conclusions

• Too early to say whether the model is sustainable but the need is there

• Supporting Alice means we can house a single woman with no recourse to public funds (and who has no right to work)

Thank you

Questions?